Journal #1, August 31

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5972867.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS (extra research)

The development of GPS is truly one of those modern marvels of the late twenty century; it was first developed and used only for the military until President Ronald Reagan made it available to the public in 1983. The Global Positioning System (GPS) today has many uses, mostly used to aid navigation worldwide and a great tool for land surveying, map making, and other scientific uses. Now millions of motorists use GPS everyday in their cars, the Consumer Electronics Association estimates 20 percent of Americans have them; they are becoming cheaper and so showing up in more cars. Well for a few years the government and other law enforcement departments have been using it to help in cases to win convictions. Recently GPS was used to help convict Eric Hanson for killing four family members when they used his GPS unit in his Chevy TrailBlazer to help the prosecutor. Prosecutors analyzed the data from the Garmin GPS device to find out where Hanson had been on the morning when his four family members were fatally shot in 2005 and he was convicted this year for the killings. This is not the only time courts have used GPS to help is these type of cases; in recent cases it has helped convict a man charged to rape when it showed him "prowling" the street looking for a victim and also convicted a man who was charged with setting fire to his own house when his car was only 100 yards away during the fire. This is just a another way GPS is changing and helping our lives and there is no telling what is next. Alan Brill, a Minnesota-based computer forensics expert said, "What we're dealing with here is a use of the technology that I don't think the good people at Magellan or Garmin or TomTom really thought about when they were developing it." I believe what Mr. Brill is saying is true, for just being developed for the military to surveying land to helping solve criminal cases. I think that the author does a good job showing the advantages of GPS in these cases, but I also think that it can impose on the 4th amendment also. There is a thin line were it can impose, not many people like that the government can use a device to know where someone is, so it is an invation of privacy,but if they can get a warrent to convict the defendant, I say go head. Now since GPS is used in court maybe it will make criminals think twice before they commit a crime because there is GPS in more and more phones and cars, so it is a great deterrent. I have never been a big fan of some of the new technology that has came out, but I must say that GPS is a great and very useful tool to have.